Why traditional animation is now eliminated by society

No attraction, the plot can not move the public, can not meet the needs of the people now, now China's animation production of key units, or Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio, CCTV animation department and other state-owned units. Although now facing the situation of transformation, but the long-term formation of the "state-owned" shadow is still difficult to get rid of. Since the planned economy to the market economy after the transition, in addition to a few enterprises, the plan for the creative side of the package is gone, but the output of the creation of the distribution of the party is still firmly in the hands of the planned economy, which leads to the creation of the self-sufficiency after the self-sufficiency can not be self-sufficient. The monopolization of broadcasting channels and a large number of non-market behaviors in China's animation industry have seriously restricted the development of animation. At the same time, foreign animation forces without many restrictions, a large number of China, the national animation industry to form a huge impact, and cause the outflow of talented people, the formation of the animation industry's downtrodden situation.

Under the government's strong administrative intervention, there is no market competitiveness of domestic animation works, even if the domestic ratings reached 100%, but also will be eliminated by the international market. Another form of "intervention" is retrenchment, or even extreme control. Nowadays, in the new macro-control process of the cultural industry, our government is always worried about such and such problems, and thinks that it still needs to rely on the original administrative control mechanism in order to rest assured. This practice of strict control has left many animation resources idle and animation production organizations deprived of development opportunities. In fact, in the animation market environment, animation enterprises are not directly under the orders of the government, but must accept the law and the market rules of the constraints, but also will accept the animation industry development planning and the guidance of the relevant economic policies. The perfect rule of law environment, standardized market order and industrial development planning and economic policies are provided by the government, so the will of the government is still reflected in it. In the development of our animation industry, can the government pursue a kind of unlimited control and require animation enterprises to unconditionally obey the government's administrative instructions? In the final analysis, the reform of the traditional management of the cultural industry is the title of the cartoon system reform, the government should take the initiative to determine the boundaries of their own activities, innovation of the management system of the animation culture industry, from administrative control to the administration of the law to change, the real solution to the problem of the animation industry to the fundamental method on the agenda.

Due to the rich content of the animation industry, the span is quite large, involving film and television, publishing, manufacturing and other industries, so the state did not make it clear that it belongs exclusively to which ministries and commissions to lead. This year, there is an animation exhibition held in Shanghai, the organizer of the animation exhibition has 20 ministries, this kind of exaggerated, spectacular management scene is really rare. Many administrative systems arbitrarily allocate cartoon resources, disrupting the entire fair competition in the cartoon market, resulting in the cartoon industry is difficult to form a complete plan, the industrial structure can not be improved in a timely manner, regulating the cartoon industry, the leverage mechanism is difficult to play a role. Especially in the production of animation products, approval, production, sales and distribution of links, due to the management of different departments, the industry chain is artificially cut, the limited funds can not be reasonably used, resulting in a huge waste of manpower, material and financial resources.

The development of anything can not always be smooth sailing, the development of China's animation can not escape this historical law. China's animation level of the obvious decline from the early 1990s in the last century has begun, and to date still can not stop the decline.

At present, the content and form of China's animation are relatively thin and weak, showing extreme "low-children" characteristics, adults do not like to see, the children do not like to see. Anime consumers are located in the young group, is the consistent style of the domestic animation industry. Moreover, there is still no decent animation work that can attract adults to watch in our animation market. The animation industry is essentially a cultural entertainment industry, and young people, as the main consumer group, are involved in the problems of insufficient purchasing power and delayed schooling, etc. Most of the animation production and broadcasting companies in China have been working on the production and broadcasting of animation products. Most of the animation production and broadcasting enterprises in China have not seized the industrial opportunities brought by the international trend of adultization of the animation industry, and have not taken adults as target consumers to create animation products suitable for adults, thus greatly restricting the rise of the purchasing power of animation. And our school education has been modeled to the point of "direct teaching without asking the reason". In this kind of education copy out of the animation talent naturally can not adapt to this society, the creation of animation works boring, no sense of freshness, lack of sufficient market competitiveness.

(2) Analysis of the relevant animation exhibitions

In July 2005, three heavyweight animation exhibitions appeared in Shanghai. The State Ministry of Culture, the General Administration of Press and Publication and the General Administration of Radio, Film and Television all enthusiastically hosted animation exhibitions across the country. In the context of the market economy, the government administration has become more and more conscious of making money, and many of the exhibitions organized are, in the final analysis, for funding. However, it is difficult for all these comic exhibitions to have any practical effect, and the exchanges and even international cooperation between the various links of the animation industry chain are minimal. To a certain extent, the mushrooming of Comic Shows has inhibited the development of China's animation industry in disguise. The numerous comics fairs have made the sale of animation derivatives their main objective. Although the audience reaches tens of thousands and the popularity is always high, it has no practical significance to promote the development of China's animation industry. It has been observed that outside of the chattering pediatric audience, few animation practitioners actually came to negotiate business.

And the world's animation powers are so organized animation exhibition. Every year at the end of March, Japan will be held in Tokyo, the International Cartoon Expo, which is the whole of Japan's only annual large and comprehensive anime exhibition. The organizers divide the exhibition into two phases: the first 2 days is a corporate exhibition, which is open to industry insiders only; the last 3 days is a public exhibition, which is open to the general public. Such a specialized cartoon exhibition allows participants to realize the greatest gains from exhibiting. Korea Seoul Cartoon Image Exhibition by the Korean Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Cultural Industry Promotion Agency, which aims to develop the commercial value of the cartoon image to make it an important part of the cultural industry, while South Korea ultimately become the largest cartoon image of the Asian cartoon image product market cartoon image exporters.

At present, the development of China's animation industry needs to be sincere and down-to-earth attitude, quietly do the original brand, mechanism construction and the operation of the industry chain, do not rush to achieve the fickleness of the wind, to avoid the animation publicity is alienated into the exhibition form.

(C) Discussion on the listed animation base

The so-called "base" should be an organization that can really do something practical for the animation industry. The national base should serve for the overall planning of the national animation industry; the regional one should serve for a specific area, formulate the five-year short-term goal and ten-year long-term plan for the development of animation in the area, or take advantage of the talents, creativity, planning, organization, technology, equipments, funds and operation methods to produce more domestic animation masterpieces of profound thought and exquisite art, and to drive the healthy and rapid development of the animation industry in our country. In December 2004, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) announced the awarding of the first batch of national animation industry bases, including Shanghai Fine Arts Film Studio, and in June 2005, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) awarded a license to the second batch of six national animation industry bases. But now we have the base of the existence of how much substance, I'm afraid to further explore.

In the background of domestic animation is still stagnant, our bases are disguised as two kinds of "function": one is some government departments to show the importance of the development of the animation industry in their own departments; the other is to be pulled by some enterprises as a banner, relying on the government background to obtain business interests. A large number of bases up and down the country have remarkable features: they are established in a hurry for approval, and almost all of them lack sufficient qualifications. According to the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), the investment scale of the base must reach 100 million RMB, where does the money come from? In Beijing, Shanghai and other economically developed cities, we can still count on the strength of the company's investment; but in the less developed or underdeveloped areas of the economy, food and clothing have not been completely resolved, where so many funds to spend on an industry that does not see much investment prospects? The base is required to produce up to 3,000 minutes of animation per year, and this condition is how to meet the actual production status?

(4) money consciousness and impetuous mentality affects the development of animation

Communication University of China and other four institutions of higher learning has become the national animation teaching and research base, that is to say, these educational bases bear the responsibility of training animation professionals. But in the current situation, the education base does not play a role in education, but on the contrary, it is full of brass flavor, it is difficult to cultivate a creative ability, mastery of high technology, with artistic cultivation of comprehensive animation talent.

At present, the phenomenon of China's animation industry can be summarized as the word "impetuous". Although a part of the people in the full investment in the animation industry, but they do not know exactly how to do animation, follow the trend of a large number of people. The unpredictable mode of investment in animation reflects the idea of quick success and quick profit. Promote the development of the animation industry can not rely on the show, we must rely on the works, talents, good operation mechanism of the "real work". Only with the heart of doing business to do animation industry, more a "bench sitting for ten years cold" patience and determination, less a "overnight wealth", "fast leading" hot-headedness, the animation industry in China can be in a solid and stable position, the animation industry in China can be in a solid and stable position. The Chinese animation industry can only develop gradually on a solid foundation.

(E) policy is a double-edged sword

From 1996, the Central Propaganda Department and the General Administration of Press and Publication jointly launched the "China Children's Animation Publishing Project", the establishment of five animation publishing bases in East China, North China, etc., to January 20, 2005 onwards, the implementation of the domestic television animation distribution licensing system. The successive introduction of these policies and measures for China's animation industry is good news, but did not get a warm response from the animation business, but instead incurred the industry's grievances. The main reason is that these measures are vague, mostly "support", "allow", "to increase appropriately" and other ambiguous words, inevitably leaving many loopholes for the implementation of the policy. Inevitably, this has left many loopholes for the implementation of the policy, resulting in a policy that is tantamount to a "castle in the air". In view of these realities, the state has made further efforts to start developing specific rules for the animation policy.

In June 2005, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television put forward the draft of "Specific Measures to Promote the Development of China's Animation Creation", which involves the content of *** 18 (referred to as "18"). The most notable ones are: domestic animated films must be broadcasted during prime time (17:00 to 21:00); the ratio of the number of foreign animated films introduced by production organizations to the number of original ones should be 1:1, etc. This will mark the beginning of the development of China's animation industry. This will mark the official release of the specific policies of China's animation industry, which is full of the government's high-level expectations for the rapid development of China's animation industry.

In addition to showing its own content, the value of the policy is more reflected in the specific implementation process. Now China's animation industry is facing a serious problem: the real understanding of animation people do not have the power to develop animation policy, but by the understanding of animation just stay in the theoretical level or simply do not understand the laws of animation in the development of animation policy, such a policy in the end can only be a piece of paper.

[edit] The production process of traditional animation

[edit] Storyboarding

Before the actual production of an animation, a storyboard is usually made to design the screen and image of the script. A storyboard is a story sketch that uses drawings to depict the storyline and illustrate the composition of the images, similar in style to a comic strip. It breaks down the images of a particular shot in the production and labels them with lines, time required, camera angles and panning positions, sound effects, and so on. Visualizing the script makes it easier for the producers to discuss changes and avoid wasting money and time during the actual production, as well as coordinating references between various departments, especially the animators and the director. Most of the storyboards are drawn by the director himself, or can be done by professional artists, but need regular communication between them and the director. The storyboards are often revised many times between the final production of the work before they are finalized. Storyboards are often used in all kinds of video productions, so not only traditional animation, but also other forms of animation, as well as movies, television, and commercials, are created before shooting.

[edit] Sound recording

Traditional animation is used in the production of animation, especially by Disney. Because it is always easier to synchronize music and sound effects with animation than it is to synchronize sound with animation, some of the sound and music used in the animation is recorded on a scratch track before the animation is produced. In order to facilitate the production of animation, action and sound can be more coordinated. A complete animation sound track includes music, sound effects and dialog. However, the scratch track used to synchronize the animation movements usually only needs the voices, the songs sung by the characters and some temporary music. The final sound and music effects are added in post-production.

Another way of producing animation is to create the animation first, and then add the various sound effects used in the animation in post-production, which was also done in the early days of sound animation. The vast majority of American animation still uses the method of recording and then producing the animation, while Japanese animation is the complete opposite of almost all use the method of producing the animation first and then recording. The recording method was ideal for synchronizing sound effects and animation in the early days of animation, but with the development of post-production techniques, the recording method also allows for better synchronization of animation and sound effects.

[edit] Animated video subplot

Animated video subplot (animatics) or story reel, similarly referred to as a story reel, is also known as a story tape, or motion demo tape. This is the storyboard image with dialogue based sound effects, music, after the real work of time allocation and screen order of the storyboard image, so that you can see the finished product of the approximate appearance. This allows the director and animator to review the script, plot, and timing, and to identify any inconsistencies with the correct storyboards and make corrections. This kind of visualization also makes it easier to review the story itself in order to identify and fix problems before production. A video sequence is usually done after the storyboard and sound effects, and as a preliminary draft before the actual animation begins. Because traditional animation is so time-consuming and labor-intensive, it is important to avoid making changes to the finalized work as much as possible.

The animation video subplot is completed in advance before the animation production, but the sketches used in it will be replaced by the completed scenes as the animation production progresses, and gradually turn into a finished product, which can be used by the producer to check and modify the work continuously to achieve satisfactory results.

The finished scene is usually shown to the main producers for review. They are also shown to non-producers to test whether the audience's perception of the work is what the producer intended. In the mid-1970s, animated video sequences and other visualized storyboards were collectively referred to as videomatics, which, in addition to being used to preview animated works, were used primarily to test the viability or presentation of commercial images.

In the early days of animation, the more expensive Oxberry cameras were used to formally shoot animation. Instead, the cheaper Leica cameras were used for general artwork or animation video sequencing, so animation video sequencing was also known as Leica reel in the early days.

[edit] Design and time setting

After an animated video score is approved, the storyboards are distributed to the design department to create a specific design for the story. In some cases, design work is done concurrently with storyboarding. The designers will design the characters or props according to the script, and produce the design drawings (model sheet, model sheet, model sheet). On the design drawings, various characters or objects need to be drawn with their body proportions and modeled from various angles. If it is a character design, you also need to draw a variety of facial expressions (happy, angry, etc.), as well as their use of objects and so on. The animator will draw a unified character or object based on the design. To make the animation easier to draw, the design drawings need to be as simple as possible and have a uniform art style. Generally speaking, the design drawings of characters are divided into three kinds: costume design drawings, facial expression design drawings and local decoration design drawings. The angles are usually categorized into front, side and back. Sometimes, some characters or objects are sculpted into solid models for better viewing and drawing. After the design is created, the main characters are drawn side by side in a row to differentiate the size and height of the characters. While the character designs are being created, art directors work with color stylists to determine the art style and color scheme of the work.

While the design is underway, the timing director analyzes the animatic to determine which frames the character's pose and mouth shape will be assigned to, and then creates an "exposure sheet," or X-sheet, in which a frame-by-frame record of the character's pose and mouth shape is recorded. The exposure sheet is a frame-by-frame record of successive frames of action, dialog, and the sound effects used in the background music, etc., and serves as a concrete reference to help the animator draw the animation. If a work includes a lot of music, or if the work itself is animated in the form of music, a music bar sheet may be used instead of an exposure sheet to better synchronize the action and dialogue with the music. The bar sheet is often labeled with a musical score.

[edit] Layout

Layout, or layout, is usually done after various designs have been completed and approved by the director. The process of layout is similar to a movie cameraman using a video camera. Background composer needs to analyze how a scene is framed, the perspective, the size of the background, and the light and shadows needed for the picture. Character composition artist needs to design and draw out the proportion of the character, position, movement, as well as the scene of the character needs to show the posture modeling, and according to the dialogue to increase the role of the posture, usually these poses have some representative, can be more clearly expressed the content of the scene. In some short animation, the role of composition artist is often played by the director.

Generally speaking, the artist works on a multilayered black-and-white drawing that includes characters, special effects, and backgrounds. Characters and effects need to be labeled for size, scale, position, and key dynamics in the background. The background layer requires space for the scene, props, foreground, and how big the picture needs to be (drawing out the safety frame of the shot) in addition to a light and shadow schematic, which suggests to the background artist the atmosphere, light and shadow, texture, and location of the light source needed for the background. If the character in the scene has deep movement, the animator will also need to draw a perspective grid of the background, and depending on the shot, the background will be drawn in layers according to the distance of the perspective.

After the composition is complete, it will be made into a video mirror sequence again according to the "x-sheet" (x-sheet), allowing the producer to review the work again.

[edit] Animation

Animation takes place after the video score created from the composition has been approved. The animator draws each frame needed for the scene on paper. The paper used for drawing usually has holes in it to hold it to a peg bar. A key animator or lead animator draws the key frames of a scene by composing the scene. Keyframes are the frames that contain the main action of the animation. For example, in a scene where a character jumps across a pond, the keyframe animator will draw the main frames where the character jumps, leaps across the pond, and lands, and decide how many other frames are needed between the keyframes.

For pre-dubbed animation, the animator draws the frames in such a way that the frames are synchronized with the sound effects that have already been recorded. That's why it's so important to accurately time the animation frames. Because if the frames and the sound effects do not match well, it will eventually affect the audience's viewing. In some high-budget animation productions, the animator needs to spend a lot of effort to make the character's mouth match the sound he makes when he speaks.

In the production of scene animation, the animator (original artist) (animator) will usually be the animation in the scene for a pencil draft of the test shot (line shot, line check) (Pencil test), the line shot is an animation of the scene in the final form of the initial form, similar to a demo. By is to make a simple image of the key frames of the scene's animation, and then with basic sound effects. It is used to test whether the movements of the animation in the scene are smooth, whether the characters are deformed, and whether the sound effects fit together. General animators through the line shot to review their own work and make the appropriate changes, and then the scene animation to improve the work to the assistant animators (assistant animators), they add details or supplement the missing frames. After the assistant animators have completed this work, the scene's animation will then be line-shot for review and modified accordingly. After review and revision, the lead animator will submit the line shot dailies to the director or producer and other creative staff for review. This stage is somewhat similar to the Storyboard stage. The animator usually makes several changes to a scene until the director is satisfied.

The pencil review, also known as the "Sweatbox," is often thought to have originated at Disney because Walt Disney, the company's founder, watched pencil proofs with animators in a room known as the "Sweat box" and made suggestions for changes. One theory is that the room in which the dailies were viewed was so small and stuffy that it was called the Sweat Box. It has also been suggested that the animators were worried about Walt Disney's reaction to the dailies. It is also said that the animators sweated nervously because they were worried about Walt Disney's reaction to the dailies. Nowadays, the term means an animated demo or a half-finished product that has been cleaned and colored and is ready to be submitted to a director for review and approval.

In some higher-budget animation productions, the main characters are animated by a dedicated animator, or a specialized team of animators. The team consists of a supervising animator, several lead animators, and a number of assistant animators. If an animated scene requires two or more characters to interact, then the active animators responsible for each character will first get together to discuss which character is to play the leading role in the scene, and then complete the animation of the character who is to play the main role first. The animation of the lesser characters will be drawn in conjunction with the actions of the "leading" characters.

When the pencil draft test shot review passes, the lead animator (lead animator) will submit the animation to the clean-up department (clean-up department) to reorganize. This department is mainly on the production of animation has been made on the screen clean-up, repair shape and reorganization, as well as drawing interval frame. This department consists of both clean-up animators and inbetweeners. The former mainly on the pencil draft through the review of the animation to clean up and re-copy, so that the picture more unified, so that the whole work of the characters and scenes in the final screening to give a person as if from a person's hand drawing feeling. The latter interval frame animator draws the animation needs interval animation frame, that is, two key frames (key frame) in the middle of the frame. Make it a real animation. This process is known as fill in the interval (interval fill in) (tweening). When the department of clearing the scene reorganization is completed, it will once again pencil test shot review (penceil test).